Armenia has lengthy relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Russia’s high diplomat has blamed the conflict in Ukraine for affecting the provision of arms to Armenia, and has expressed concern that Moscow’s longstanding ally would now look to the West for navy help as a substitute.
Talking in Yerevan on the second day of a two-day go to to Armenia, International Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned that a few of Russia’s weapons contracts with the previous Soviet republic had been delayed or reassigned as a result of pressures created by the conflict in Ukraine.
Armenia has lengthy relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan, in opposition to whom it has fought a sequence of conflicts because the late Eighties.
“We’re presently in a state of affairs the place, as has occurred all through historical past, we’re pressured to struggle all of Europe,” Lavrov mentioned, in a barbed reference to European help for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion.
“Our Armenian pals perceive that in such circumstances, we can not fulfil all our obligations on time.”
As Russia has did not ship on weapons contracts paid for by Armenia, Yerevan has more and more turned to international locations like France and India for navy provides.
Lavrov mentioned that Russia wouldn’t oppose these rising ties, however mentioned that they raised considerations about its conventional ally’s strategic intentions.
“When an ally turns to a rustic like France, which leads the hostile camp and whose president and ministers converse brazenly with hatred towards Russia, it does increase questions,” he mentioned.
Armenia has strengthened its ties with the West amid latest ongoing tensions with Azerbaijan, fallout from the final main eruption of battle and Russia’s function in that.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a navy operation to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist enclave in Azerbaijan with a largely ethnic Armenian inhabitants that had damaged away from Baku with Armenian help amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to guard the greater than 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled the area, fuelled by many years of mistrust, wars, mutual hatred and violence, after Azerbaijan’s lightning takeover.
Yerevan additionally suspended its involvement within the Collective Safety Treaty Organisation, a Russian-led safety umbrella of ex-Soviet international locations, final 12 months, saying it will not take part or fund the alliance.
